


Go With the Phloem

by maybesandsomedays



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, More Than That Less Than 5k
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 09:47:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4217013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybesandsomedays/pseuds/maybesandsomedays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons has a very important project involving plants, and that project certainly does not involve Leopold Fitz flying his D.W.A.R.F. into her lab and knocking her out with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go With the Phloem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purplelaterade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplelaterade/gifts).



> This was written for the Less Than 5k exchange on Tumblr, for the lovely Megan (scienceb1atch/purplelaterade), who is a wonderful beacon of light and whose prompt was "lab shenanigans." I hope you like it! <3
> 
> As always, a thank you goes out to Jess, helping me along the way with this fic and helping inspire it in the first place, and for just being there and being her.

Simmons makes a note on her clipboard, waters one plant, and then makes another note. She’s continuing this daily routine with the next plant when suddenly a flying _something_ zooms into her lab and crashes into her head.

The next thing she knows, she’s on the floor, looking up at a man whose face doesn’t look familiar at all.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” he says. “I’m really sorry about that, I lost control of Happy and—”

“My plants!” Simmons gasps, shooting up to a sitting position and immediately regretting it when her head both swims and feels like someone’s tap dancing inside of it. “Oh no, now the whole experiment’s ruined—”

“Whoa, hey!” The man reaches out to grasp her arm and slow her down. “You just got knocked out. The plants’ll be fine. Lie back down.”

Since the plants are unsalvageable now anyway, she does as he says, noting the genuine concern in his eyes, and sets her head down on the pillow he must have put there.

“Jemma Simmons,” she says, because she thinks he ought to know the name of the person he knocked out and is now taking care of.

He looks relieved that she listened. “Leo Fitz.”

“So what happened, exactly?”

He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “I, uh, I was sending the D.W.A.R.F.S. out for a test drive, and Happy here”—he lifts up the offending drone—“ran away from me and bumped into your head.”

“I’d say it was a bit more than a bump.”

The blush that had started just after he rubbed his neck deepens. “Er, yeah. Actually, y’know, you might want to get that checked. Could have a concussion.”

“Right.”

He holds out his hand to help her up. “Come on. I’ll take you to hospital.”

* * *

Simmons ends up with a mild concussion and the nurse instructs Fitz to monitor her overnight. His protests of “Oh, I’m not really—she’s not—we’re not—” fall on deaf ears and he resigns himself to the fact that watching her is the least he can do, since he’s the reason she needs this in the first place.

He takes her back to his place because there at least he’ll know where everything is and he lives alone and therefore has no annoying roommate to barge in, and he doesn’t know whether or not the same is true of this woman he just met.

“Sorry about the mess,” he says sheepishly as he leads her in. “So, you’ve got to stay awake all night, yeah? I’ll help keep you occupied.”

She immediately looks guilty. “Oh, no, you don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do,” he cuts her off. “It’s my fault Happy got out of control, I should’ve designed him better.”

She goes silent and he motions for her to sit down on the couch. “Tea?”

“Please.”

* * *

Fitz gapes at the cards on the table in disbelief. Jemma stares at him smugly.

“Bloody concussion and still winning,” he mutters as he scoops up the cards, pointedly shuffling her stack of tricks.

He tries to ignore how beautiful she is looking so happy and how he thinks he’d do anything to see that smile all of the time. It doesn’t mean he won’t beat her at cards, though.

He also tries to ignore that they’re playing a game called Honeymoon Whist.

* * *

Fitz yawns, glances at his watch, and smiles upon seeing the time. It’s three hours beyond when Jemma was able to sleep, and based on what the nurse told him and what’s written in the handout he was given, she’s fine. They’d lost track of time, wrapped up in everything, and the time they’d been told had passed by unnoticed by either of them.

He pokes her gently to get her attention. “Hey. Uh, Jemma. It’s past—you can sleep now. Three hours ago.”

She looks up from searching the types of teas he has stocked. “Oh! Good.”

“So…goodbye, then?” he says awkwardly.

“Actually, do you…” She hesitates. “Do you mind if I sleep on your couch for a while? I’m too tired to go home, I’ll fall asleep on the tube.”

“Oh. Yes. Okay. Yeah, that is perfectly fine. Except, uh, actually, no it’s not. No, I’ll take the couch, you sleep on the bed.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t—”

“You have a concussion. You’re taking the bed.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she concedes. “But next time, Leopold Fitz, that couch is mine.”

He smiles. “Got it. And, hey, want to watch something? I don’t know about you, but I’m too awake to sleep just yet.”

She nods. “I’d love that.” They silently and effortlessly work together to make the couch into a bed before settling down to watch a _Doctor Who_ rerun.

* * *

The next thing he knows, Fitz is waking up with a large weight on top of him. He opens his eyes to see Jemma Simmons completely on top of him, with him on his back and her on her stomach, using his chest as a pillow. Her hair is fanned out around her head and she’s kind of cute, he thinks, his mind still cloudy, and he closes his eyes again, burrows deeper into the couch bed, and starts lazily rubbing his hand up and down her back, before it suddenly dawns on him that he fell asleep with a perfect stranger on top of him. Albeit a stranger he’d given a concussion and spent an amazing night hanging out with, but a stranger nonetheless.

And the next thing he realizes is that his body is having a bit of a reaction to her being there, and he can’t move out from under her without hurting both of them and so she’ll definitely notice.

While he panics about what to do about the situation, she starts to stir but only repositions herself and snuggles closer to him, into his chest, and in doing so, presses her hips into his and rubs up against his erection in her sleep, and despite himself, he gasps, which turns into a groan. And this, this moment when he’s painfully hard and moaning, is of course the moment Jemma blinks awake.

“Fitz? What happened? We must’ve fallen— _oh_.” His face burns beet-red, knowing she’s now felt his problem.

“I’m sorry Jemma—” he starts apologizing.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s a perfectly natural—”

“—I shouldn’t have suggested _Doctor Who_ last night, we were both tired—”

“—your body is only reacting to the pressure in your bladder—”

“—and I should’ve just let you have the bed and slept here right then and there—”

“—and the fact that I’m on top of you—”

“—and I’m sorry.”

“—and there’s no shame in it, Fitz.”

They both pause and look at each other until Fitz is the one to finally break the silence. “D’you think you should maybe…”

“Get off. Yes. Right.” She raises her upper body up so she’s almost straddling him for a second before climbing off the bed. He immediately misses her warmth and starts reciting the periodic table in his head to calm himself down while she hovers awkwardly near the arm of the couch.

* * *

Two days later, when she’s _finally_ allowed to go back to work, Jemma is incredibly annoyed when Fitz’s drone once again flies into her lab only moments after she arrives. She makes a mental note to yell at him later about D.W.A.R.F.s in her lab and officially ban them.

This time, instead of zooming in, it approaches slowly and cautiously before landing on the tabletop without making a sound, and when it does she notices the piece of paper attached to its leg.

_Welcome back. This one’s Doc, he says hi. – Fitz_

She turns to look out the window facing the engineering building and sees Fitz waving at her from the window directly across from hers.

* * *

A heavy leather-bound book appears on Fitz’s lab table the next day.

_Dear Fitz,_

_Since you’ve decided to use your D.W.A.R.F.S. to talk to me, I will also use my science to communicate. This book states the symbolic meaning of every plant I have in my lab._

_-Jemma_

The note is scrawled on the inside cover in messy, nearly unreadable doctor’s handwriting. Fitz puzzles over what she could possibly mean by how she’ll use her science to communicate with him, but then he notices a potted plant sitting in Jemma’s window that hadn’t been there before, with a sign indicating what they are big enough for him to read.

Daffodil and plumeria.

The meaning his new book tells him they have in common: new beginnings.

* * *

“So after my previous experiment was ruined—” Fitz grins sheepishly in apology. “—I explained what happened and I’m being allowed to start again.” Jemma proudly presents an array of tiny potted plants in her lab.

“What are their names?”

“Well, that one is a jasmine, and that one’s a forsythia…”

“You didn’t name them?” he cuts her off.

She scrunches up her nose. “Of course not, Fitz. They’re plants.”

“I will then. That one there, that’s George, that one’s Monkey, and there’s Jimmy Jabs, and—”

“Fitz, I am not calling my plant Jimmy Jabs.”

“Does that mean you like George and Monkey?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not naming any of my plants, that’s ridiculous.”

“But they’re already attached to their names, Jem.”

Jemma smiles softly and affectionately rolls her eyes. But later that night before Fitz goes to sleep he receives a text from her, a photo.

It’s of a succulent in her lab, the one that Fitz had declared looked exactly like a butt, and the label now reads:

 _Gibbaeum heathii_  
_A.K.A. “Fitz”_

* * *

One day, as a surprise, she adorns the windowsill with an entire bouquet.

Pear blossoms. Arborvitae. Primrose. Dozens of each.

Lasting friendship, everlasting friendship, and eternal love.

He grins giddily to himself, unable to believe that Jemma sees them as friends. He’d thought of them that way since the first night they spent together, but he was never quite sure if Jemma did, and now he has proof in plant form straight from the horse’s mouth.

Why she chose this day to display her devotion to their friendship (his heart does a flip at that thought), he has no idea. Then a message pops up on his computer screen.

_Fitz—_

_Today is the anniversary of the day you gave me a concussion with your early D.W.A.R.F. I’m certainly glad they’ve been improved since then._

_You’ve probably figured out by now what each flower signifies. I thought today was a good day to bring it out, to say how happy I am that we met, that we’re friends._

_Love,_  
_Jemma_

Fitz reads the note twice. Three times. Four. Then he shoots out of his seat and rushes to the building next door, stopping only to grab what he needs.

* * *

“Jemma!” Fitz cries, rushing into the lab, tripping over things and almost falling over in his attempt to speed in and slow down quickly and stop on a dime.

She looks up at him and beams. “Oh, Fitz! You got my note?”

He stares at her for a moment, silent, breathing heavily, and then thrusts out his hands toward her. “Happy anniversary,” he blurts out.

She gently takes the D.W.A.R.F. from his outstretched hands, turning it over and examining it. “There’s no note,” she points out in confusion.

Fitz tries to gather his words. “It—no—I didn’t think of that. It’s, uh, it’s for you,” he finishes bashfully.

Jemma’s eyes flick up from the drone to his face. “What?”

Fitz taps the D.W.A.R.F. “This is Happy. He’s the one who hit you a year ago.” He tries a lopsided grin. “I thought you should have him. That way you can send me messages besides the ones with the flowers—”

He’s cut off as Jemma throws her arms around him in a tight hug. “Thank you, Fitz,” she says softly into his ear.

Fitz kisses her forehead. “Happy friend anniversary, Jemma.”

“Happy friend anniversary, Fitz. You’re my best friend in the world, you know that?”

Fitz’s mind completely blanks. _Her best friend?_ He’d never dared to hope that she even saw them as friends, but best friends?

Fitz is pretty sure this is the happiest he’s been in his entire life.

But she’s looking at him, and he realizes that she’s expecting some sort of answer because that’s how human communication works, and his mind is still empty of anything but her and so he finds himself blurting, “You’re more than that.”

And her eyes immediately widen and his do too, and both of their mouths open and close for a moment as they flounder for something to say, and then Fitz runs.

* * *

Fitz impatiently taps on the table with a pencil. She was supposed to have put out a plant twenty minutes ago, and Jemma is always, always punctual.

Finally, a plant appears in the window, but it’s not Jemma who puts it there. Confused, Fitz starts to panic, before he thinks to stop and consider the meaning of the plant.

A single red rose. Obvious even before he’d started studying Jemma’s book. Obvious to even the dumbest of fools.

Love.

What he doesn’t understand, however, is _why_. Why is someone putting a red rose on Jemma’s windowsill? Is it for him? Had Jemma asked the person to do that for her?

Why would Jemma ever give him a red rose symbolizing love?

And then Happy zooms into his lab and lands on the table, bearing a note.

_Turn around._

More confused than ever, he does as Jemma told him to, and there, standing in front of him, is Jemma, holding her hands together and looking nervous. And before he can ask what she’s doing, suddenly she’s kissing him.

Fitz pulls back. “What are you doing?”

She backs down, shrinking into herself and looking rather lost and confused, and Fitz notices for the first time that she’s also holding a red rose in her hand. “Oh, I’m—I’m so sorry Fitz, I thought—”

“Are you feeling okay?” He places his hand on her forehead, which then furrows in confusion.

“I’m feeling fine, what are you—”

“Are you sure? What’s going on?”

“I wanted to talk about what you said that day. I figured out that I feel the same, that’s all.” She seems to regain some of her composure and confidence, straightens back up again. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, you obviously didn’t like it.”

Fitz gapes. “I, uh, I liked it,” he manages to squeak out, and her eyes meet his.

As he kisses her, he works the rose into her hair.


End file.
